A tent is intended to provide one or more users with a shelter which is fairly easily transported to be erected at various desired locations. Traditionally, tents have required poles, lines and/or stakes, all of which add weight to the tent (making the tent more cumbersome to transport), and all of which are readily misplaced (making the tent difficult to erect). Recent improvements in tent design have sought to eliminate these cumbersome elements.
One example of a pole-less tent is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,829, incorporated by reference herein, which describes an inflatable tent structure comprising a plurality of pneumatically interconnected, elongate inflatable tubes defining the perimeter of the tent structure for being inflated in unison. A valve is provided for inflating the tubes, and a plurality of wall panels are suspended from and between the tubes to define the enclosure of the tent whereby the tubes define a support structure exterior to the enclosure of the tent. The tubes define a dome-shaped structure, the tubes converging in pneumatic interconnection with each other in a single plane at the apex of the dome-shaped structure. The valve includes a manifold in which all of the tubes interconnect at the apex of the dome-shaped structure. Among the shortcomings of such a tent, as described in this patent, are the dome shape and the interconnection of all of the tubes to a single valve. For example, failure of the single valve at the apex could result in the entire tent collapsing. Further, the location of the inflating valve on the exterior of the tent does not allow the user to re-inflate a partially inflated tent without exiting the tent.
The present invention is specifically directed at a tent for accommodating one person, that is lightweight (easy to transport), durable, weatherproof, reliable, and easy to use.
The following U.S. patents are referenced by way of background information, and are incorporated by reference herein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,205,086; 4,707,953; 3,629,875; 4,317,315; 3,759,277; 4,251,959; and 4,114,325.